State scholarships aren't just a way out of public school

Butcher: Bill would expand reach of this worthwhile program

Hanson Irvin works with his teacher, Nanette Bonds, in 2011. Irvin was one of the state's first to get an Empowerment Scholarship Account, in which the money that would have gone to his public school is put into an account for his family to use for his education.

Do you qualify?

Empowerment Scholarship Accounts are available to Arizona residents who have attended a public school full time for the first 100 days of the year prior to applying OR who have received a School Tuition Organization scholarship for Displaced and Disabled students the year prior to applying OR who will be at least 5 but not 6 years old on Sept. 1.

Students also must be:

- A child with a disability.

- A child of an active-duty military parent.

- A child who is a ward of the juvenile court and is in foster care or who has been adopted.

- A child who attended a letter grade “D” or “F” public school the prior school year. Incoming kindergartners must live in a failing school's boundary.

When raising children, it is said we spend the first four years teaching them to walk and talk and the next 14 years getting them to sit down and be quiet. For Michael and Amanda Howard, the process looked much different.

Their son, Nathan, did not speak for the first six years of his life. The Howards tried everything — a developmental preschool, talking with Nathan’s teacher, one-on-one attention — but nothing seemed to click.

In 2011, the Howards applied for an Empowerment Scholarship Account. The Arizona Department of Education deposited public funds into a private account dedicated to Nathan’s education. After finding specific services for Nathan, including a new school, his development made a U-turn: He now uses complete sentences and knows all 50 states. “He is eager to learn!” Amanda says.

“It’s wonderful that we can have mini-conversations now,” she says, relishing in the newfound pleasure of two-way communication with her son.

Arizona has long had a reputation as a place where families can choose where their child goes to school. Choosing a traditional school or charter school or even using a scholarship to select a private school is nothing new for families in our state.

However, Empowerment Scholarship Accounts have made Arizona the only state where parents can not only decide where their child learns, but how he learns.

230,000 students eligible

Now 3 years old, the accounts give parents the flexibility to choose from different options inside and outside of the classroom. Parents can use the accounts to pay for a personal tutor, buy textbooks and online classes, pay for private-school tuition and individual public-school classes, and even save for college.

Some 230,000 Arizona students are eligible, including children with special needs, children attending a failing public school, adopted children and children in active-duty military families.

Every child is different, and the accounts are helping more than 700 families like the Howards meet the unique needs of their children. The accounts are helping students who were bullied by their classmates find new schools. Children with cerebral palsy are using education therapies not available to them before. One hundred students from schools that earned a “D” or “F” on the state’s report card are using the accounts to find better options.

The Goldwater Institute and the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice surveyed families using Empowerment Scholarship Accounts and found that 90 percent were either “very satisfied” or “satisfied” with the accounts. No parents reported any level of dissatisfaction.

Many of the parents surveyed weren’t using an account because they were unhappy with their child’s previous public school: 21 percent of those surveyed said they were “very satisfied” with their public school before using an account. They were looking for more individualized services their previous schools couldn’t provide.

Bill would expand reach

Arizona lawmakers have noticed. Rep. Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, is sponsoring a bill that would allow district governing boards to vote and make the children in their school assignment areas eligible for the accounts.

But would public-school officials really give parents educational options outside the district’s public schools? Considering recent findings from the Arizona Board of Regents, parents should demand that districts do so.

As this paper reported in “State’s high schools show huge disparity in college grad rates” (The Arizona Republic, Nov. 13), only 5 percent of the graduates from half of the state’s high schools finished college. Sixty-two percent of those who did finish came from just 40 of the 460 high schools in the state.

In 2011 the Douglas County, Colo., school board voted to give their students similar choices to those available through Arizona’s accounts. Douglas County, an affluent, suburban, high-performing school district, allows their students to choose between public and private schools (the program is capped at 500 students).

The American Enterprise Institute, a research institution in Washington, D.C., writes, “For Douglas County, school choice is not seen as a ‘ticket out’ of failing schools but as a way to encourage customization and to offer more paths for students to choose.”

School choice in Douglas County is not a matter of opening an escape hatch but an exercise in going from “good to great rather than from poor to passable.”

The usual opponents to student options, including the American Civil Liberties Union, sued to stop the district’s reforms. The case is before the Colorado Supreme Court.

Choice matters

In Arizona, the state teachers’ union and school boards’ association went on the offensive over students using the accounts as soon as the law passed in 2011. Fortunately for families like the Howards, the Maricopa County Superior Court and the Arizona Court of Appeals have upheld the accounts.

Last October, Appeals Court Judge Jon W. Thompson wrote, “Parents can use the funds deposited in the empowerment account to customize an education that meets their children’s unique educational needs.”

The union and school boards’ association have asked the Arizona Supreme Court to consider the case.

In the meantime, the Arizona Department of Education anticipates thousands of parents will apply for accounts this spring (parents have until April 1).

And not a moment too soon. In an age of stagnating achievement, the accounts give parents and students access to the best educational programs and resources to help them realize their potential.

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